This essay was written by Kitsufox in an attempt to go a bit deeper into the Harassment Policy.

Verbatim Policy

Harassment will not be tolerated. Players found to be harassing others through any medium will suffer a permanent ban from CoSC.

In Detail

What is Harassment

CoSC defines harassment as any act that violates the rights of another player in any way.

CoSC Assigns the following rights to other players:

Respect: The players have the right to be treated with respect by all other players. This includes other players honoring things like requests for them to be left alone.

Non-Confrontational Environment: While conflicts between players do happen, CoSC expects players to not intentionally initiate conflict with another, and when finding themselves in conflict with another will work with staff to settle that conflict peacefully, without extending the conflict.

Non-racist Environment: Every player has a right to a CoSC experience free of racism. This applies only to OOC areas, as inter-Clan racism should be expected.

Lack of Religious Persecution: Players have the right to use the greetings of religious holidays when appropriate, but are expected to accept the sentiments of others (even if they do not share the same holiday). Respect for others' religions is to be expected, and in the same vein religious soap-boxing is frowned upon.

Non-Sexist Environment: Every player has the right to an experience free of OOC sexism.

Harassment Investigation

When harassment is discovered or reported an investigation will commence. In some cases, this may include a suspension of the reported-harasser account for the duration of the investigation. The investigation will first establish whether or not harassment actually took place. If harassment is decided to have taken place they will then proceed to determine if it was intentional or unintentional. The final step is to decide a punishment for the violator.

Punishments for Unintentional Harassment

Unintentional Harassment, being unintentional, is not punished as severely as intentional.

The CoSC staff will generally ask for an apology to be issued to the person harassed. Whether or not this apology is public or private will be decided based on the situation. Should the harassment be public, so shall the apology. In the case of publicly executed harassment, the harasser will also be expected to issue an apology to the other members of the game for disrupting things.

It should be noted that people guilty of consistent unintentional harassment will leave the staff no choice but to take severe action against them, up to and including eviction from the game.

Punishments for Intentional Harassment

Intentional harassment will result in expulsion from the game. There is no place at CoSC for players who abuse others.